What Nobody Saw: Day 6

Word Count: 36,062

Summary of Events:

Walker started sorting through the personal papers from the attic, sorting the diaries chronologically and trying to group the remaining papers by writing style as much as he could; while he was doing so he discovered a photo of a stunningly beautiful woman who looked like she could've been a movie star . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Was this Mrs. Schissler?

Walker turned the photo over and compared the handwriting on the front of the diary to that on the back of the photo. They were the same. The diaries, he knew, were written by Zina thanks to a process of elimination — she’d mentioned Wanda by name and talked about wanting dresses, plus the writing on the diaries took on a distinctly feminine appearance as the years advanced — thus if she was identifying the woman in the photograph as her mother, then that meant that, indeed, the spellbindingly beautiful woman in the photo was Mrs. Jolene Schissler.

By now Walker wagered Mrs. Schissler would have grey hair, as she’d probably at least been in her thirties when this photo was taken, which was forty years ago, thus she was presently in her seventies; unless she had the anti-grey genes that Grandpa Felix’s mother had, as there were photos of her at the age of eighty and her hair wasn’t even close to grey.

Thumbing through the diary, Walker found another photo of a handsome young man who looked significantly younger than Mrs. Schissler, having a youthful appearance in spite of his mature clothes and hairstyle.

On the back of it was a different hand: Love Always, Milt Forster, 1979.

Walker guessed it was Zina’s boyfriend. He looked at the page and found an entry that matched:

Friday, 27 April 1979

Milty’s family got their photos yesterday and he gave me one! He looks so dreamy! I wish I were old enough to get married already so that I could be his wife.

He gave it to me when he came to pick up Maureen and offered to drive me most of the way home. I really wanted to go, but I knew I’d have to be down off the clouds by the time I got home or Dad would be asking questions, so I told him it’d have to be another time.

I didn’t actually look at the back of the photo until I came home and it was all I could do to be sober by the time we had supper, Milty wrote ‘love always’ on the back. He actually really likes me! If I could get married now I would and then I could be out from under Dad’s control and actually be able to be happy without having to be interrogated.

Honestly, when people wonder what it’s got to be like to live behind the Iron Curtain, I think I probably know better than anyone. Dad could be a Soviet dictator without even trying; speaking of which, I should get on my homework so he doesn’t come in here and yell at me.

Walker closed both photos back into the diary and flipped to the front page before placing it on the stack where it belonged chronologically. Everything he was seeing in these papers was pointing toward an unpleasant, unhappy existence in the Schissler household beyond what he might have ever imagined.

What Nobody Saw: Day 5

Word Count: 30,044

Summary of Events:

In accordance with a change of plans, Walker and two of his coworkers prepared all the existing window openings and created a few new ones in the house so the windows could be installed that afternoon; as they waited for the windows to arrive they had lunch, during which Walker's oldest coworker got a phone call. After lunch Walker and his other coworker went to see if the windows had arrived and when they did Walker went to get his older coworker, who was still on his cellphone and quite agitated . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“Mom!” a startled cry sounded from a nearby yard. “What are you doing!?”

Walker startled when he saw a gate open in the back fence and a little white haired old woman storm through; a woman who looked on the older side of middle aged hurried after the older woman, who was making straight for Jay.

“You boys are no better than your father with all this swearing!” the older woman shouted, prompting Jay to stop and look at her in consternation. “For decades I haven’t been able to know a peaceful afternoon outside without it being broken by your profanity!”

“I-I’m terribly sorry ma’am, it’s just–”

“No excuses!” the woman interjected. “I am through with this!”

“Mom!” the other woman cried.

The old woman seized Jay by the throat and slapped him across the face three times, then she turned and looked at Walker.

“You’d better not get any ideas boy!” she snapped.

“No ma’am,” Walker replied quickly.

“Mom, please,” the other woman pleaded, managing to get the old woman to release a flabbergasted Jay. “I’m sorry, she’s in the early stages of dementia, I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

“How long has she lived there?” Walker asked, pointing toward where they’d come from.

“She and Dad bought the house as newlyweds,” the other woman replied, looking a little puzzled.

Walker advanced. “Ma’am who are you thinking he is?”

“I’m not thinking he’s anyone,” the old woman snapped. “He’s Maurice Schissler.”

“No I’m not!” Jay exclaimed.

“Go check if the windows are right,” Walker replied, shooing at Jay, who looked a little offended. “Um, ma’am, this house doesn’t belong to the Schisslers any more, but, may I ask what you mean about your peaceful afternoons being broken up by swearing? Was it common?”

“As if you wouldn’t know,” the old woman spat.

“I don’t know,” Walker replied.

“Your grandfather is one of the most foul-mouthed people I’ve ever heard of!” the old woman snapped. “That Anglican church should’ve expelled him for all the swearing he did! No self-respecting Christian would ever spew that much vile language, and especially at his wife!”

“He’d swear at my grandma?” Walker asked, deciding to go along with the woman.

“Yes!” the woman replied. “If my husband would’ve done that I would’ve slapped him, and if he would’ve kept it up like that I would’ve left him. She was a whipping-girl to him, and their children were no better treated, it’s no wonder his family fell apart like it did!”

Walker stared silently, barely hearing the woman’s daughter apologise again before guiding her mother back to the yard across the fence and facing an adjoining street. Was it just the woman’s dementia? Or was it true? Had Mrs. Schissler and the Schissler children been verbally abused by Mr. Schissler? Walker didn’t know now, but he was pretty sure the papers in his garage he’d yet to look at bore the answer.

What Nobody Saw: Day 4

Word Count: 24,008

Summary of Events:

Walker went over to his dad's house to watch the Toronto Blue Jays with his dad and a bunch of his dad's friends during which he asked if his dad recognised the name Warner Schissler, which his dad did, informing him Warner Schissler had owned and managed several auto dealerships, but had died two years ago. The following day Walker perused some of the papers, looking to see if he could discover a connection to the Dr. Schissler he'd discovered on Friday, whose first name he'd learned was Jonas . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

At the bottom of the box, in among many of the newspapers — which dated back into the 1960s — were two notebooks belonging to Jonas Schissler. That gave Walker a total of five Schissler children, and a connection.

Like Ricky and Zina’s notebooks, Jonas’ were marked with the school year they were used for, not just the grade that Jonas had been in when he’d used them, and based on those years and the typical age of children in the grades that Jonas was in when he used the notebooks, Walker estimated Jonas to be in his early fifties, a little younger than Dad, which fit with the picture of Dr. Schissler on the Mobility Orthopaedics website.

So it looked like Dr. Jonas Schissler was the son of Warner and Jolene Schissler. That was a good connection.

With that connection Walker wondered if he should contact Dr. Schissler about his mother’s mail, but there was also the fact that Warner Schissler was dead, so then was it possible that Jolene Schissler was too? If her oldest child, which was Ricky based on what Walker was observing, was in his late fifties then Mrs. Schissler had to be in her late seventies.

Sure Grandpa Felix and Grandma Milla were in their mid-to-late seventies, but that was about the age where the old people started dropping off, as even though Walker had all of his grandparents still alive — including his step-grandparents because of Mom’s parents having divorced and both remarried — a lot of his friends had at least lost one of their grandparents, if not all of them.

Corbin, for example, had only his grandmas left, while Jasper had no grandparents at all, and Marshall had only one set, and all of their deceased grandparents had died before the age of eighty five and after the age of seventy.

To Walker that meant that Mrs. Schissler, having to be over seventy five for sure, could very well be dead and gone, and thus unable to read her unopened mail, or she could even be in such a delicate state that seeing all the mail she’d stashed away would upset her.

It might be an idea to see if he could find out whether Mrs. Schissler was still alive by searching the internet or something, maybe she’d have a number in the phone book if she was still alive somewhere.

If he couldn’t find anything about her then he might have to contact Dr. Schissler and see if either his mother was still alive or if he and his siblings would be interested in looking at two boxes full of letters and parcels their mother had, for some reason, never opened, but, instead, decided to stash away in the attic of her house and forget about.

What Nobody Saw: Day 3

Word Count: 18,017

Summary of Events:

Walker continued working at gutting the house with his coworkers, being disappointed as they progressed through the house to not find any more papers stashed anywhere else. After work he sorted through the papers he'd found, dividing them into ones he wanted to keep in case the family who'd written them wanted them back, and ones he was going to discard. Once he'd finished sorting the papers he was contacted by a friend asking him if he could be on the bench as a spare goaltender for a charity hockey game, which he agreed to; during the warmup in advance of the game, however, his fellow goaltender went down with what Walker suspected was a muscle sprain of some sort, which meant Walker would have to mind the net for the duration of the game . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Settling into the net and idly running through the warmup motions again, Walker looked at the event sponsors who’d paid for space on the boards. He stopped when he saw the one just inside his own blue line.

The primary focus of the ad was the beneficiary organisation, but in the bottom corner, in a decent size, was an unexpected name: Schissler.

Walker glided closer and saw that the ad had been paid for by Drs. Ellis, Usyk, and Schissler of Mobility Orthopaedics.

Slowly he glided backwards, glancing toward his downed compatriot who was now being attended to by uniformed paramedics, who’d brought out a stretcher. Of all the places he’d have thought he’d run into the Schissler name, it wasn’t at a charity hockey game.

Yet, as he neared his net, watching as his fellow goaltender lay on the stretcher without being secured to it and was towed off the ice, the crowd in the stands applauding as he waved at them, he had to admit, it wasn’t right. It didn’t fit.

He knew the name Schissler from somewhere, but it wasn’t medical; there was somewhere else that he knew the Schissler name from, but he couldn’t for the life of him think of where.

Even if this Schissler wasn’t the one he was thinking of, though, Walker had to admit that he suspected a connection; this Dr. Schissler could maybe be a son, a nephew, or a brother of the Warner Schissler whose wife had left two boxes of unopened mail in the attic of their house, thus he might know where other Schisslers were.

After all, Walker didn’t think Schissler was a common surname, seeing as he’d only recalled one Schissler before, and was surprised to discover a second, and Schissler was likely a German surname — as most names that began with Sch were — while Manitoba was a little bit more dominated by French/Métis and Ukrainian-rooted populations, such as Walker himself, who was fully Ukrainian on his father’s side, his great-great grandparents for sure, if not his great grandparents too, having been born in Ukraine.

At the moment Walker had a game to focus on playing, but following the game he had every intention of looking up Mobility Orthopaedics to see what Dr. Schissler’s first name was, and then he’d have to go through the papers in his garage to see if the first name came up anywhere to give him an idea of connection.

As for his recognition of the Warner Schissler name, he had to admit that he felt like Dad would have an idea of where he knew that name from, and since he was seeing Dad tomorrow he would have to ask and see.

What Nobody Saw: Day 2

Word Count: 12,116

Summary of Events:

When Walker went up through the attic opening to see how much there was for papers in the attic so that he could bag them up before they fell on his head he had spied a box in the far corner of the attic, after lunch he was able to make enough progress tearing the ceiling down to get closer to it so that he could remove it before it crashed down on his head and injured him . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Indeed, the boxes — as he now saw there was more than one — were close enough to reach, and he brought them down. There were two quite full boxes, and a third check revealed that there were no small loose pieces lying around nearby, so he turned his attention to the two boxes and was quite shocked.

Both of them were full about to bursting with envelopes, as well as some small parcels, and as he pulled some of the envelopes out of the boxes to look at them he discovered that they were all unopened, addressed envelopes with some of the oldest postage stamps that Walker had ever seen.

The writing styles on the envelopes were different, as were the return addresses, but the addressee was the same, in part.

Some were addressed to a Mrs. Schissler, some to a Mrs. Warner Schissler, and some to a Mrs. Jolene Schissler.

To Walker logic suggested that all three were the same woman, sometimes referred to just by her surname, sometimes by her husband’s name, and sometimes with her own name, depending on who was writing to her.

As he looked through the boxes more and more it became abundantly clear to him that not one single letter or package in the two boxes had been opened, and he was severely baffled.

Why wouldn’t Mrs. Schissler have opened her mail? What was the use of stashing it all in a couple of boxes in a faraway, difficult-to-reach corner of her attic? Had she meant to open it but forgotten about it? But why would she go hiding it away in such a place as the attic? It didn’t make any sense, no matter how Walker might try to slice it.

He returned the letters to the boxes and put them underneath the bags of recyclables waiting to be hauled out to his truck, his mind still swirling with the strangeness of it all, and finished off scooping out insulation before pulling down the last of the ceiling.

With that done he hauled the last bag of insulation and some of the last of the ceiling pieces to the bin, where he tossed them inside before fetching the remaining ceiling pieces and then starting to haul the recycling out to his truck, where he used the bags of recycling to cover the boxes of unopened mail.

There was no way in the world he was going to ship all that mail to the recycling centre unopened, after all, what if Mrs. Schissler was alive? She might want to read her mail now, for whatever it might be worth.

And even she wasn’t alive, maybe her kids would want it for some reason. He didn’t want to discard the mail without checking to see if it had any sentimental value to the family, or maybe even some historic value to the province, after all, Walker felt like he knew the Schissler name from somewhere.

What Nobody Saw: Day 1

Word Count: 6,110

Summary of Events:

Walker got up and got ready to work on a new job for a repeat customer who owned multiple houses in Winnipeg that he rented out; his newest project for Walker and his coworkers was gutting a midcentury split level so it could be rewired, re-plumbed, and otherwise renovated into a much newer and more appealing place to rent. Because of the house's age anti-asbestos gear was required, and by virtue of being the first man suited up, Walker was assigned the master bedroom, where he started by tearing down the ceiling . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

Carefully prying a piece of drywall from the ceiling close to the closet caused not just drywall and insulation, but also some papers to fall down.

One of them was a newspaper. Intrigued, Walker picked it up. It was dated from before Dad had been born — and Dad was going to be fifty four come summer — and had no colour pictures.

He carefully sorted through the other papers, finding a bunch were handwritten notes, plus there were school scribblers, receipts, and other things.

Going back to the boxes by the door, he fetched a transparent blue plastic bag, into which he stuffed all the papers, as company policy was to recycle what could be recycled, it was part of a sustainable business policy that was really helping Vance make strides on the competition by appealing to everyone’s desires to be more environmentally friendly and sustainable.

Besides, Walker thought it made sense, if it could be reused, why shouldn’t it be reused? Not everything old was garbage. Nor was it treasure.

Picking up one of the scribblers, the childish writing on it attracted his attention: My Diere. Diere? What was that? Was that even a word?

He opened it and read the first words: 

Munday, 1 Febuary, 1971, 

Deer Diere,

Dad got mad at Wanda ugen bekuz she wantz to get a noo dres wen Mom alreddy bot her wun in Septembr. He wuz reely mad this tym and I ran away. I ken stil heer him showting at her frum heer. I dont now why he getz so angry, all my frendz hav mor then wun new dres, why cant me and Wanda hav mor? Itz not fare.

It was hard to read the poor spelling, but it helped him to realise what Diere was. It was a corruption of diary. It was the diary of a girl who had terrible spelling — well, at least about fifty years ago.

He put the diary in with the other papers, although he now paid attention to other notes and saw a couple different writing styles, including a neat, flowing cursive that was often writing shopping lists with a frightfully small number like $5 or $10 at the top, and then the items listed with prices even shockingly smaller beside them, all tallying up to the number at the top of the list.

Why was food so expensive these days when back fifty years ago fruit could be had for cents a pound? Was inflation that bad? Sure it might be more than a dollar a kilo, but a person was also getting twice the fruit for a kilo that they got for a pound.

Regardless, he put all the papers into the bag, ensuring to dust any insulation off of them, although he might still be inclined to enquire at the recycling centre if he could turn in recyclables that had asbestos exposure without a warning, or if he had to send it somewhere special — or even if it was recyclable at all.

February Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: What Nobody Saw

Time Setting: 2020

Genre: Life

Minimum Word Goal: 90,000

Timespan: April–May

Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba

Main Characters: Walker Kuznecov

Background Information: 

Born the youngest of three children to an electrician and a nurse living in Winnipeg, Walker was three years old when his parents divorced and his mother moved back to Ontario, where she’d been born and her mother had returned following her own divorce.

Along with his older sister, Walker was taken to Ontario, where his mother moved around on a regular basis because she didn’t buy or rent a place of her own, she just moved in with whoever was her latest boyfriend; at his request Walker’s older brother remained in Winnipeg with his father.

This was hard on Walker and his sister, who cherished their summers in Winnipeg with their father because of the stability and constancy of everything there — in fact, to this day his father hasn’t moved out of the house that Walker and his siblings were brought home from the hospital to after they were born.

Like his father, and his brother, Walker developed an interest in sports; unlike them, his interest wasn’t in the Canadian Football League — be it the Winnipeg Blue Bombers or the Toronto Argonauts — but in baseball and hockey.

As the only MLB team in Canada, the Toronto Blue Jays came to be Walker’s favourite baseball team, but when it came to hockey, in spite of his living closer to Toronto for most of the year, Walker actually chose the Phoenix Coyotes as his favourite team.

He made this choice because of the fact that his dad told him that they had once been the Winnipeg Jets, and since Walker preferred to be in Winnipeg, he chose to like the team that had once been based there.

At the age of nine Walker got sick and tired of all the moving around — which was so bad sometimes he’d leave one house in Ontario for the summer and come back to a different one — as well as being annoyed by his mother’s inexplicable distaste for his budding sports fandom and asked to be transferred into his dad’s custody.

His sister also made the same request and the two of them moved to Winnipeg, spending only a few weeks of the year in Ontario — which Walker didn’t mind because his maternal step-grandfather proved to share his interest in sports and was responsible for taking him to see the Blue Jays a few times, as well as his first NHL game when the Coyotes played in Buffalo.

In Winnipeg, Walker found support for his sports fandom, and was even allowed to play the two sports he liked for himself, becoming a catcher for a local baseball team of kids in his age group, and a goaltender for a local hockey team.

When he was twelve Walker — and all of Winnipeg — was elated to learn that NHL hockey was returning to Winnipeg with the purchase and relocation of the Atlanta Thrashers, who were renamed the Winnipeg Jets.

For his birthday Walker was surprised to tears by tickets to the first-ever game the Jets played in their return to Winnipeg, and has been a dedicated fan of the team since, and a season ticket holder since he moved out to live on his own.

Because of the return of NHL hockey to Winnipeg Walker made the choice to pursue hockey more earnestly, scaling back his baseball play to more of a recreational practise.

When Walker was fourteen he started scaling back on his hockey playing when he realised that hockey players had to face the potential of being traded and, recalling the unpleasantness of his life spent moving around Ontario, didn’t like the idea of possibly having to move around whether he wanted to or not.

The following year Walker was informed by his father that it was time for him to start earning money for himself to buy things he wanted when his birthday or Christmas weren’t near, and helped him find a job with a renovation company his friend owned.

Walker enjoyed the work and even kept up the job through the school year by working after school and on at least one day of the weekend either helping to prepare supplies for the next day’s work, building pieces that could be constructed and then transported to the site, or painting things needed for jobs.

When he graduated Walker decided to attend trade school to become a certified carpenter, while keeping up his job so as to get the hours required for him to be certified; he completed his schooling two years ago.

Aside from working and attending every Winnipeg Jets home game — and taking in all of their road games through radio or TV — Walker spends his free time with friends, participating in recreational baseball and hockey teams, and being a catching coach for his former baseball team back when he was a kid. Once a year he goes down to Ontario to spend a weekend with his grandparents, which usually involves going to see at least one Toronto Blue Jays game live.

Although he isn’t playing sports professionally, which he would’ve liked — save the whole being traded unexpectedly business — Walker is pleased with his life, and doesn’t really have any sort of grand aspirations, he just wants to keep working at his job and maybe, eventually, getting to the point where he’s a site foreman or supervisor type, but he’s in no hurry.

Pronunciation:

Kuznecov: kuhznehkauv